John Oliver: ‘As the week went on, perhaps the most notable thing was the lengths that some Trump supporters went to defend the indefensible.’
Photograph: YouTube

On Last Week Tonight, John Oliver discussed Donald Trump’s family separation policy, widespread backlash to which caused the president to sign an executive order requiring that migrant families be detained together.

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“We begin with President Trump, the abusive father America will be talking about in therapy for the next 40 years,” said Oliver. “This week saw continued outrage over the zero-tolerance policy causing children to be separated from their parents at the border, a policy which, you may remember, Trump repeatedly insisted last week he had no power to change.”

Oliver went on: “His hands were tied. There was nothing he could do. Well, guess what?”

The host then showed news coverage of Trump’s reversal on family separation, which followed his numerous claims that it was the “Democrats’ law” and only they could fix it.

“Yes, Trump claimed he couldn’t do a thing and then he did it,” Oliver joked, “which is a little strange because he usually claims he can do things and then doesn’t do them, like draining the swamp or locking up Hillary or attending Tiffany’s sweet 16.”

But the executive order, the host explained, has “significant issues”, because rather than separating children from their parents at the border the federal government will now detain them together as their parents await prosecution. “Under current rules, the children can’t be held in detention facilities for more than 20 days,” Oliver added. “Which means less than three weeks from now they could start splitting families up all over again.”

As for the more than 2,000 children who have already been separated from their families, Oliver asked, “What exactly is the plan to deal with them?” He then showed a news segment which explained that Trump’s executive order lacks “a clear timeline for just how long it would take and how it would get done”.

“Hold on, those are some pretty major pieces to leave out,” Oliver said. “In fact, it’s all the pieces.”

Oliver continued: “As the week went on, perhaps the most notable thing was the lengths that some Trump supporters went to defend the indefensible, from ‘their parents shouldn’t have broken the law’ to ‘the conditions aren’t that bad’. But it took Fox’s Stuart Varney to go with the bold argument of, ‘Who gives a shit?’”

In a segment on Fox & Friends, Varney decried coverage of “trade war” and “children in cages”, saying that “the real big story that affects everybody in America is the success of the president’s tax cut package.”

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“That deflection technique doesn’t really work when the thing you’re deflecting from is children in cages,” replied an incredulous Oliver. “If a realtor selling a house were to say: ‘Why are we talking about children in cages? The kitchen has marble countertops,’ the only acceptable response would be: ‘Because they’re children and they’re in cages, someone needs to let them out, you fucking monster.’”